5.  The applicants were both born in 1951 and live in Ialoveni and Vorniceni respectively.
6.  The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
7.  In July 1987 the applicants and several other persons founded a business association ('the Association'). After other members of the Association left, the two applicants remained its only members. According to the applicants, in 1989 the Association hired three other persons (“the employees”) who were subsequently dismissed in 1992. According to the Government, they had become members of the Association in 1989.
8.  In December 1992 the applicants transformed the Association into a limited liability company. The newly registered company retained its old name – Victoria.
9.  On 1 June 1993 one of the employees initiated court proceedings against the applicants claiming that he had been a member of the Association and requesting the annulment of the transformation into a limited liability company. He also claimed his part of the assets of the Association. The two other employees initiated identical proceedings on 16 August 1994. The cases were joined.
10.  In 1995 the Botanica District Court granted their claims. The Supreme Court of Justice upheld that judgment. On 27 November 1995 the Plenary Supreme Court of Justice quashed that judgment and ordered a full rehearing of the case.
11.  On 3 October 1997 the Botanica District Court rejected the employees' claims. On 22 January 1998 the Chişinău Regional Court upheld that judgment. On 10 September 1998 the Court of Appeal also upheld that judgment, which then became final.
12.  On an unspecified date the Prosecutor General filed a request for the annulment of all previous judgments and for the claims against the applicants to be granted in full. On 26 January 2000 the Supreme Court of Justice upheld that request and quashed the above-mentioned judgments. It ordered a full rehearing of the case.
13.  On 27 November 2001 the Buiucani District Court declared null and void the transformation of the Association into a limited liability company. Although the employees had been hired by the Association, the court found that they had taken part in the decision-making process and had made financial contributions to the common assets of the Association. Accordingly, the court considered that the employees should be recognised as having been members of the Association. The court ordered “the distribution of the assets of the association 'Victoria', situated at 99 Decebal str. in Chişinău” between the applicants and the employees, each of the two groups obtaining various items (production equipment, cars and office equipment) of common property. The court also specified that “the building of the 'Victoria' market” should remain the applicants' property.
14.  On 11 April 2002 the Chişinău Regional Court quashed that judgment and adopted a new one by which it rejected all the claims against the applicants. On 12 September 2002 the Court of Appeal quashed the judgment of the Chişinău Regional Court and upheld the judgment of the Buiucani District Court of 27 November 2001 (in favour of the employees). That judgment became final.
15.  On 21 February 2003 a bailiff received a warrant for the enforcement of the judgment of 27 November 2001. On the same day he informed all interested parties that the assets would be distributed on 26 February 2003. On that date the bailiff came to Victoria's premises and proceeded to distribute some of the assets, even though the applicants had failed to appear. The items which the bailiff intended to transmit to the applicants were stored for safekeeping with one of the employees. The applicants challenged the bailiff's actions in court, but on 7 April 2003 the Buiucani District Court rejected their complaint.
16.  On 23 June 2003 the bailiff informed the parties that the remainder of the assets would be distributed on 8 July 2003. For unknown reasons full enforcement of the warrant was not possible on that date and a new date was set for 23 July 2003.
17.  On 23 July 2003 the bailiff reported that one of the applicants refused to take possession of the items distributed to them in accordance with the enforcement warrant, including those items already given to one of the employees for safe-keeping.
18.  On 24 July 2003 the applicants complained to the bailiff's office about the events of the previous day. They explained that they had objected to the manner in which the judgment had been enforced, in particular to being given possession of specific rooms allocated to them by the bailiff. These consisted of a small room of eight square metres and space under the stairs, which belonged to S., another company. They were not reflected in Victoria's accounting documents and did not belong to it, while other rooms belonging to Victoria had either been distributed to the employees or had not been distributed at all.
19.  On 16 October 2003 the Decisions Enforcement Department of the Ministry of Justice (“the Department”) asked the Buiucani District Court to order the return of the enforcement warrant to the applicants without enforcement, due to their refusal to receive the relevant property. On 4 November 2003 the court rejected that request as unfounded. The court found that the applicants had not refused to receive the assets to which they were entitled under the judgment of 27 November 2001.
20.  On 18 November 2003 the applicants asked the Buiucani District Court to explain how its judgment of 27 November 2001 should be enforced, namely, to specify, with reference to the plan of the building, the address and size of the part of the building which should be attributed to them.
21.  On 3 March 2004 the Buiucani District Court adopted a decision whereby it amended part of its judgment of 27 November 2001, namely, by describing the exact size and address of the part of the building which should be attributed to the applicants. It added that the applicants had the right to register their property rights with the Territorial Cadastral Office (“the TCO”). One of the applicants was not present at the hearing.
22.  Following a request by the applicants who had not been present at the hearing of 3 March 2004, on 27 April 2004 the decision explaining the judgment of 27 November 2001 was set aside and the case was sent for fresh examination.
23.  On 31 May 2004 the Buiucani District Court decided that the judgment of 27 November 2001 was to be enforced exactly as it had been formulated, “in accordance with the documents and the description in the relevant property as registered with the relevant authorities”. That decision was upheld by the Chişinău Court of Appeal on 18 November 2004.
24.  On 18 June 2004 the Department asked the TCO to issue one of the applicants with copies of documents concerning Victoria's building situated at 99 Decebal str. in Chişinău. It appears that no such documents were issued.
25.  On 3 August 2004 the applicants asked the TCO to register their property rights to Victoria's building situated at 99 Decebal str. in Chişinău, pursuant to the judgment of 27 November 2001 and the decision of 31 May 2004. On the same date the TCO refused the applicants' request and explained that the file did not contain all the necessary documents. In particular there was no exact description of the size and address of the rooms to be registered in the applicants' names, while a number of other buildings were situated at 99 Decebal str. in Chişinău.
26.  On 7 September 2004 the Department asked the Buiucani District Court to explain which exact address, including the specific room in the building, should be attributed to the applicants in accordance with the judgment of 27 November 2001. On 21 February 2005 the court answered that it had already given all the necessary explanations on 31 May 2004. The court added that the judgment was to be enforced as formulated, and that specifying the exact address and specific room to be attributed to the applicants implied an unlawful amendment of the judgment of 27 November 2001.
27.  The applicants challenged the TCO's decision of 3 August 2004 in court. On 19 May 2005 the Chişinău Court of Appeal granted their request and set aside that decision, ordering the TCO to register the relevant property in the applicants' names.
28.  On 21 September 2005 the Supreme Court of Justice quashed the lower court's decision as unfounded and ordered a rehearing by the Chişinău Court of Appeal. The court noted that the applicants were present at the hearing and that it had examined the materials of the file before reaching its decision.
29.  On 22 December 2005 the Chişinău Court of Appeal ordered an expert report to be made. An expert was asked to determine whether there had been any kind of registration of Victoria in the relevant land register, and, if so, in whose name. The expert was also asked to determine, if such a registration existed, the exact address and what rooms (their surface and other details), were included.
30.  On 21 June 2007 the Chişinău Court of Appeal found that even though the applicants had paid for the services of the expert and the TCO had made available the relevant register, no expert report had been made. On 26 April 2007 the National Judicial Expert Report Centre (“the Centre”) returned the case file to the court with an explanation that its expert had not been allowed onto the premises of the Victoria market. The court found the reason for the failure to carry out the expert report to have been “manifestly invented” since there was no evidence that the expert had been prevented from accessing the building and since on 2 April 2007 the Centre had informed the applicants that, due to a high workload, the relevant report would not be made until May 2007. The court again ordered the Centre, which is a State institution, to make the report in which it was asked to answer essentially the same questions as those raised in 2005. The court also asked the Centre, if Victoria was not registered in the relevant documents, to give a description of the market as actually visible at its location at 99 Decebal str. in Chişinău. The court noted that a representative of the third party S. was also to be present.
31.  On 21 April 2008 the Centre submitted its decision, according to which it had been impossible to reply to the court's questions. The reason for that was that Victoria was not registered in the land register, either in the applicants' names or in anybody else's name.
32.  On 13 June 2008 the Chişinău Court of Appeal annulled the TCO's decision of 3 August 2004. It found that Victoria was not registered in the land register and had no technical description as required by law. It therefore ordered the TCO to register the market in the applicants' names.
33.  On 26 November 2008 the Supreme Court of Justice quashed that judgment. It found that S.'s property rights to the building situated at 99 Decebal str. in Chişinău were registered in the land register. The court concluded that the applicants “asked for registration of their property to real estate which does not exist, since the existence [of a piece of real estate] is confirmed only when the relevant entry is made in the land register”.
34.  On 18 July 2005 Ms N. Mardari became the applicants' representative in their case before the Court. On the same day she attempted to obtain access to the case file but was unable to find it at the Buiucani District Court.
35.  According to the applicants' lawyer, on 20 July 2005 she was informed by a person from the registry of the Buiucani District Court that the case file had been sent to the Government Agent's Office on 14 January 2005. The case file was returned to the Buiucani District Court on 9 March 2005.
36.  On 22 July 2005 she asked the Supreme Council of the Judiciary for assistance in removing obstacles she had encountered at the Buiucani District Court, namely, that she had not been given access to the case file.
37.  On 23 July 2005 the Buiucani District Court informed the applicants' lawyer that the case file was nowhere to be found.
38.  According to the applicants' lawyer, she obtained access to the case file on 19 October 2005.